Month: January 2011

I don’t have Bateszi’s gift for intros, so let’s jump right into the Winter Preview. This season does not have any wildly anticipated shows, nor have I seen something of Star Driver’s caliber. Still, even if the shows don’t blow you away, anime is definitely still well and kicking.

Even whilst it was airing, Astro Fighter Sunred seemed like a pretty obscure series. Indeed, I often felt like I was one of the few people watching it. It’s a hard sell, I guess, because it’s not only a visibly low budget production, but also a parody of Japan’s sentai genre. Apparently people don’t watch parodies of genres they are unfamiliar with, but since I’ve never seen an authentic Japanese sentai series (all of my experience with it consists of a brief (albeit passionate) fling with none other than Power Rangers,) I’m hardly an expert either! Basically, let’s just get this straight right now: ignoring it because you know nothing about sentai is no god damn excuse.

Black Lagoon’s original run impressed me. The show was beautifully animated, included an interesting cast, and had enough violent gun battles to give a child nightmares. I also think it had the best crew of any recent show. What it lacked was length. Its 24 original episodes, stretched over two seasons, were fun to watch but the ending of the series did not provide enough closure. It felt more like a season finale than an episode meant to wrap up an entire series. Luckily a new OVA (a straight to DVD released) named Roberta’s Blood Trail was released in 2010. The OVA starts slow but if you liked Black Lagoon’s first run and can forgive the OVA’s lack of an interesting story you get a treat.